Customer Reviews

The Einstein Theory of Relativity

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Albert Einstein is rightly considered one of the greatest scientists of all time, and his two theories of relativity - special and general - are the crowning glory of his scientific oeuvre. They have fundamentally reshaped our thinking of the most fundamental concepts - space, time and matter. These two theories have also withstood the test of time, and a century after they had been formulated they are still almost entirely used in their original formulations.

H. A. Lorentz was a distinguished physicist in his own right, and one of Einstein's closest scientific and personal friends. The special kind of the coordinate transformations that characterize the special relativity have been named after him, and he is one of the first people to whom Einstein described his general theory of relativity. In that regard he is certainly one of the foremost early authorities on the subject.

This short book primarily deals with the general theory of relativity. It was written shortly after one of the most startling predictions of the general relativity - the deflection of light by the sun - was confirmed by the British astronomer Eddington. The public was immensely fascinated by this incredible phenomenon, and there was a need for an accessible and informative explanation of general relativity. Unfortunately, even though general relativity is an incredibly "beautiful" theory in its own right, the mathematical apparatus required for its full understanding is formidable. This short introduction completely sidesteps all mathematical language and presents the subject in terms of the most fundamental concepts.

It is quite remarkable that a short popular book like this one has withstood the test of time. As a college physics professor who works with general relativity I could not think of much that I would add or subtract from this book. However, this is a rather short book and if a reader would like a bit more information on the subject that is still at the level of general reader I would strongly recommend Relativity A Very Short Introduction.

And I say "beware the General Books LLC reprint" because when you do the "Look Inside" thing, you'll read "Just so you know...This view is of the Paperback edition (2009) from WLC. The Paperback edition (2010) from General Books LLC that you originally viewed is the one you'll receive if you click the Add to Cart button at left.." And that's correct. The General Books LLC version is a completely different book. To wit....

General Books LLC puts together books using an OCR automated scanning device which can miss complete pages. There are many many Typos and no table of contents. There books receive NO EDITING of any kind, also, the OCR scanning is done by a robot (which the publishers website outright says can miss pages). This is all stated on the publishers web site (google them and read for yourself to get all the details).

Within Amazon, books are generally grouped by the same title regardless of whether there are multiple publishers - which there are for this book, as it's now copyright free. Consequently, when one of these books with multiple publishers is reviewed, you will see the reviews of other publishers versions associated with it. And as a result you need to be very careful to make sure you've bought a decent version. The version available from General Books LLC is NOT a decent version. To be quite frank, it's awful. Full of mistakes (OCR does that, when there's no actual editing to catch the software-generated mistakes), tiny font (verging on the unreadable), no table of contents, no index. By now you should get the idea.

General Books LLC are flooding Amazon with these low quality publications (450,000+ listed so far) and, unfortunately, many of them have the reviews associated with the original or with better quality imprints associated with them. For the buyer that's not aware of this publisher this can result in a rather unfortunate purchasing decision.

A good rule of thumb for these Print on Demand publishers is to take a look at the cover - if it's a good quality illustration that reflects the content, there's a table of contents, and when you do the Look Inside thing there's no disclaimer saying you're looking at another book, and they've stated that they used facsimile reproduction technology (rather than OCR), it's usually a pretty safe bet. Conversely, if any of these are missing, you're taking a chance on the quality. I've bought a few based on my selection criteria above and they've been good quality. General Books LLC however, is a publisher to steer clear of at all costs.

If you have been unfortunate enough to buy the General Books LLC version by mistake, you can return to Amazon for a full refund (but check Amazon's return policy and process first).

This very short book is sort of an abstract on Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Whether you're familiar, and especially if you are, about Physics and Nature's Laws of Motion, Gravity, etc...this is a worthwhile read for getting to know Einstein's theory as written by a friend physicist. It describes Einstein's theory and quashes your curiosity on the subject matter.

Short and concise, I picked up a few concepts that I was not truly aware of since grade school or high school...when I was actually enrolled in a science class. For instance, I always thought space is enveloped in a vacuum...meaning no air or nothing at all. It was not after reading this book that I was made re-aware of the gas ether as "light's medium"...or what the upper atmosphere consists of, hence the word ethereal (`not of this world).

Read further and you actually grasp the essence of the theory, said in the simplest possible way from a physicist's point of view. Right now though, I'd like to read more on the subject matter at hand...or perhaps more on Einstein himself. This is just good entry-point reading.

This book is a nice, quick entry point for people looking to learn about Einstein's famous theory.

That being said, this should not be the only source of info you use to learn about the subject. As previously mentioned, this article is about 90 years old so there is newer material to be read. That being said I never see anything wrong with starting from the beginning and working your way forward.

A brief explanation by analogy of perhaps Einstein's most famous theory, sans mathematics, written by a colleague also credited with developing the theories. The metaphorical devices are designed to be accessible to the average reader, though a high school-level understanding Newtonian physics is required.

The Kindle version may be download for free from Amazon.

I am by no stretch of mind a physicist or scientist (in fact, I didn't even take it in my senior years of high school), but I got a fair understanding of the theory by the presentation in this book. Mind you, I had to reread some senetnces/paragraphs a time or two to grasp concepts, and I can't adequately explain it very well to another person, but I now have a general understanding. This is probably a very enjoyable read for someone who is a science enthusiast, but over the head for anyone who is looking for a good read.

While studying the topic at university the focus was on craming all the equations into your head. No equations in this book (thank goodness its been a while) but what it did do was give me some historical context for the magnitude of the discovery and it's verification. Its a good read for someone interested in physics and something I would probably never have read if it hadnt been for my kindle.

Away to read "Five of Maxwells Papers"

was not really what i was expecting, but it illustrates the story behind the thoughts of albert heinstein and it is very interesting

If I ware the author this would not be the way I would go. He explains simple phenomenon as complicated as he can but actually says little about the theory andit's applications

This is an interesting book and is one that I will want to look over again.

It peaked my interest and got me thinking. You can't go wrong with the price either.

Lambert Klein Author of: Blogging for Pleasure and Money - Discover Easy Ways to a Successful Blog and Attracting Traffic